What Should Determine the Value of a Human Life

(This post courtesy of Public Relations Officer Danie Monahan)

The members of the Roundtable turned its minds to one of the most difficult questions facing humanity. Does the uniqueness of life give it its value? Or is it conscious thought and self-awareness? Or does the value of life lie in the ability to form social connections through empathy? Where exactly ought we to draw the line between those we value as human and those that we don't? What causes us to make decisions about whose life is more important in situations when we don't uphold human life as the ultimate value?

Before we could effectively dive into these questions, we had to get some definitions out on the table. First of all, the Roundtable decided to try and focus on what should give life value, not what does in practice. One member pointed out that, as humans, we would surely value human life over other species simply because we are ourselves human. A "Prisoner's Dilemma of human existence" ensures that we value those who cooperate with us more than those who don't, leading to a “tit-for-tat” morality. Another member argued that we must value all human life equally because the social implications of not doing so are dire. Similarly, we value food animals less highly because we have evolved to kill them for sustenance. While these insights proved intriguing, we decided to ask how each of us should, individually, value life.

Secondly, one member volunteered the introductory psychology definition of consciousness. Consciousness requires perception and sensation, but also self-awareness and the ability to perceive relationships between the self and the environment. A classic test used to gauge the level of consciousness of animals is to determine whether they recognize themselves in a mirror.

Many roundtablers agreed that consciousness had great value, and that hurting a conscious being clearly was worse than hurting an unconscious one. Should dolphins lives consequently be valued more highly than a human infant? They are certainly more self-aware.

In the more general sense, the Roundtable discussed the unique mystery of reproduction as a source of importance for life. We cannot control how to shape a person, while for all human purposes we can accurately reproduce plants or robots. Furthermore, we value a puppy less before it becomes an irreplaceable part of a human family. On the spiritual side, the uniqueness of a human soul would be the source of life's importance. As we explored this argument, we found it would imply that fetuses, who are in our day genetically irreproduceable, would hold value for their uniqueness. However, a "metal brain" would not hold value because it was constructed according to a plan. Most members agreed that a perfect reproduction of a self-aware human brain would definitely hold as much value as a human being.

One discussant hypothesized a value system based on pain and pleasure as the ultimate evil and good. For conscious beings, we should take the moral action that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain in a utilitarian fashion. Thus the value of life is not all-or-nothing but rather falls on a continuous scale. The lives of mentally disabled people are just as valued as the rest of us when they feel the same spectrum of emotions.

Not completely satisfied with any of the various systems proposed, the roundtable shifted discussion to the difference between the values of adults and infants. We realized that when someone runs into a burning building, they save the baby first. Why should we value infants, and even fetuses, so highly? One student thought the value of human life lay in the potential to shape one's own development and create one's own individuality. Under this definition, the value of a life is not defined at a particular moment but rather as a sum of present and potential future conditions. Another member noted that finding meaning and direction in life is crucial to human survival in a way that differentiates us from animals.

As the discussion came to a close, the general opinion seemed to approve of this last definition. However, as we finished the pepperoni pizza, we agreed it would be best to be vegetarian in order to preserve the value of all life.